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Anne Stevenson
Anne Stevenson (born January 3, 1933) is an American-English poet and prose writer. Life Stevenson's parents, Louise (Destler) and C.L. Stevenson, met in high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were living in Cambridge, England, where Charles was studying philosophy under I.A. Richards and Wittgenstein and T.A. Richards, when their oldest daughter, Anne, was born. The family returned to America when Anne was 6 months old, moving to New Haven, her father going on to teach at universities including Harvard and Yale.Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p185 Stevenson was raised in New England, the eldest of 3 daughters, and was educated in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father was a professor of philosophy.Stevenson's websiteInterview for Poetic Mind, 2008 Her father was a devoted pianist and lover of poetry and her mother wrote fiction and was a talented storyteller. Stevenson learnt piano and cello and she assumed until she was 19 that she would be a professional musician. She studied music and languages, at the University of Michigan and there decided that she would be a writer. After obtaining her bachelor's degree in 1954 and graduating with honors, she returned to the United Kingdom, where she has lived most of her life. Stevenson married a childhood friend but her romantic ideals dissolved and the marriage was not a success. She notes that "it took me two unhappy marriages and three children to make me reconsider my assumptions."Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p186 In the 1960s she lived and wrote in Cambridge, Glasgow, Dundee and Oxford. She was writer in residence at the University of Dundee and co-founded Other Poetry (magazine) with Evangeline Patterson. In 1979, with Michael Farley, she started The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye and in 1982 she moved to Sunderland, then Durham, where she now lives with her husband Peter Lucas. As of 2011 she had six grandchildren. Writing Stevenson is the author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, of some books of essays and literary criticism, of a controversial biography of the American poet Sylvia Plath (Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath, 1989), and 2 critical studies of Elizabeth Bishop. Alfred Hickling at the Guardian said of Stevenson's work: "To arrive at a true understanding of Anne Stevenson's poetry, you have to go deep. In fact, the Deep is a very good place to start. Jutting into the Humber estuary like a vast steel fin, the Deep is Hull's impressive new aquatic attraction - where you expect to find tropical fish rather than topical poetry - yet the first thing the visitor sees, before descending to the bottom of Europe's deepest tank, is a line by Stevenson: 'The sea is as near as we come to another world.'" Quotations “Although I rarely write in set forms now, poems still come to me as tunes in the head. Words fall into rhythms before they make sense. It often happens that I discover what a poem is about through a process of listening to what its rhythms are telling me.”Anne Stevenson b. 1933, Poetry Foundation. Web, Mar. 5, 2013. Recognition *1955 - Major Hopwood Award for Poetry *1990 - Athena Alumnae Award from the University of Michigan. *1995 - Cholmondeley Award *2002 - inaugural winner of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award *2007 - Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award *2007 - The Neglected Masters Award from the Poetry Foundation of America *2007 - Taylor-Aiken Poet of the Year award from the University of the South in Tennessee *2008 - Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Michigan. Publications Poetry *''Living in America''. Ann Arbor, MI: Generation, 1965. *''Reversals'', Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1969. *''Travelling Behind Glass: Selected poems, 1963-1973''. London: Oxford University Press, 1974. *''Correspondences: A family history in letters''. London: Oxford University Press / Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1974. *''A Morden Tower Reading 3: Poems from a reading given at Morden Tower by Anne Stevenson on 4 February 1977''. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Morden Tower Publications, 1977. *''Cliff Walk''. Richmond, Surrey, UK: Keepsake Press, 1977. *''Enough of Green''., Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1977. *''Rose''. Hitchin, UK: Mandeville Press, 1978; in Mandeville Dragoncards 6. Mandeville Press, 1979. *''Sonnets for Five Seasons''. Hay-on-Wye, UK: Five Seasons Press / Other Poetry Editions, 1979. *''Ah Babel''. Hitchin, UK: Starwheel Press, 1980. *''Buzzard and Alder''. Hitchin, UK: Mandeville Press, 1981; in Mandeville Dragoncards Eleven. Mandeville Press, 1981. *''Ganymede''. Hereford, UK: Five Seasons Press, 1982. *''Narcissus''. Hereford, UK: Five Seasons Press, 1982. *''The Three''. Hereford, UK: Five Seasons Press, 1982. *''Green Mountain, Black Mountain''. Boston: Rowan Tree Press, 1982. *''New Poems''. Leamington Spa, UK: Bath Place Community Arts Press, 1982. *''Minute by Glass Minute''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1982. *''A Legacy''. Langley Park, Durham, UK: Taxus Press, 1983. *''Making Poetry''. Oxford, UK: Pisces Press, 1983. *''Black Grate Poems''. Headington, UK: Inky Parrot Press, 1984. *''The Fiction-Makers''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1985. *''Winter Time''. Ashington, Northumberland, UK: Mid Northumberland Arts Group, 1986. *''Selected Poems, 1956–1986''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1987. *"Ragwort". London: Poems on the Underground, 1987. *''The Other House''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990. *''Four and a Half Dancing Men''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993. *''A Post Thalamion: To celebrate the marriage of John and Laura Elvin''. privately printed, 1994. *''Collected Poems, 1955–1995''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996. *"After the Fall". London: Poems on the Underground, 1999. *''Burning Newspapers''. Cardiff, UK: Poems for the Waiting Room / Hyphen-21, 2000. *''On Going Deaf''. West Chester, PA: Aralia Press, 2000. *''Granny Scarecrow''. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe, 2000. *''Wind, Sun and Moon''. Thame, UK: Clutag Press, 2001. *''Hearing with my Fingers''. Oxford, UK: Thumbscrew Press, 2002. *''A Report from the Border: New & Rescued Poems''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2003. *''Poems, 1955-2005''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2005. *''A Lament for the Makers''. Thame, UK: Clutag Press, 2006. *''Stone Milk''. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2007. *''Selected Poems''. New York: Library of America, 2008. *"It Looks so Simple from a Distance...". London: Poems on the Underground, 2010. Non-fiction * Elizabeth Bishop, New York: Twayne Publishers 1966 *''Bitter Fame: A life of Sylvia Plath'' Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989; London: Viking, 1989. *''Between the Iceberg and the Ship: Selected essays''. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998. *''Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop'' (with introduction by Andrew Motion). London: Bellew Publishing, 1998. Edited *''Gallimaufry'', Nos 1 and 2. Dundee, Scotland, UK: 1974–1975. *''Seagate: New poetry from Dundee''. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK: Rainbow Books, 1975. *''Other Poetry'', Nos 1–15, Oxford, Hay-on-Wye and Leicester, UK: 1978–85. *Frances Bellerby, Selected Poems. London: Enitharmon Press, 1986. *''The Observer & Ronald Duncan Foundation International Poetry Competition 1985 Anthology''. Beaworthy, UK: Arvon Foundation, 1987. *Phoebe Hesketh, Netting the Sun: New and collected poems. Petersfield, UK: Enitharmon Press, 1989. *''The Poetry Book Society Anthology'' 2. London: Hutchinson / Poetry Book Society, 1991. *Ellie McDonald, The Gangan Fuit. Edinburgh: Chapman, 1991. *''The Gregory Anthology, 1991–1993''. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994. *Christopher Southgate, A Love and its Sounding: Explorations of T.S. Eliot. Salzburg: University of Salzburg, 1997. *Noëlle Griffiths, Season Songs. Wrexham, UK: Wrexham Arts Centre / Canolfan Gelf Wrecsam, 2002. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Anne Stevenson.Bibliography, Anne Stevenson, Poet. Web, Mar. 5, 2014. See also *List of British poets References External links ;Poems *"On the 17.14 out of Newcastle", The Guardian *"The Ghost in the Motel Mirror"; "A Lament for the Makers" (excerpt) *Anne Stevenson profile and 3 poems at the Academy of American Poets *Anne Stevenson b. 1933 at the Poetry Foundation ;Audio / video *Anne Stevenson (b. 1933) at The Poetry Archive *Anne Stevenson at YouTube ;Books *Anne Stevenson at Amazon.com ;About *"Border Crossings," The Guardian *Anne Stevenson Official website. *"The Poetry of Anne Stevenson," Michigan Quarterly Review *"Rising to the Surface of Language", Poetic Mind *"Compacting Time: Anne Stevenson's poems of memory," Hudson Review *"Interview with Anne Stevenson", Cortland Review Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:American poets Category:American women writers Category:English poets Category:English women writers Category:Women poets Category:Cholmondeley Award winners Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Deaf poets